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Monday, February 02, 2009

Needle felted dyed batting

I spent the weekend with some friends and one of them had a needle felting machine. I have never worked with one before but I knew the Rit dyed batting I brought was going to be perfect. I cut 9 squares and 9 circles from warm and cool colors and layered them alternating warm circles on cool squares and cool circles on warm squares on top of a piece of buckram.

I filled in little gaps with strips of different colors and added roving to the circles for highlights and shadows. It was SOOOO much fun. I love the painterly quality.

I had to keep playing and made another simple composition. Now I see why people want a needle felting machine after they try one out. I do not think I need to add one to my collection of tools just yet, but I would love to work on one again sometime.

In the morning I head off to do a lecture at the North Suburban Needle Arts Guild, north of Chicago. On Wednesday and Thursday I am also teaching two workshops for the guild; painting fabric for whole cloth quilts and using Tsukineko inks.

17 comments:

very cool, judy! have not tried needle felting yet but it does look intriguing.

wanted to say i finally watched your QA dvd on painting fabric and it's terrific! i learned a lot and i loved that you seemed so relaxed while painting. this dvd will really be a help to me one of these days when i finally take the cloth-painting plunge. (just never enough hours in a day to squeeze everything in.)

judy, judy, judy....i love the look of the rit dyed batting. i was somewhere this past weekend and they had the whole collection of colors, was it hobby lobby in mason city, iowa. i wanted them all but since mark just dropped a hundred bucks on me at this really neat quilt shop we found.....

I don't know what brand of sewing machine you use, but mine has a needlefelting foot/attachment...that's what I use and I LOVE it!! I works wonderfully, and as a bonus, it makes me really clean my machine when I'm done. (you take out the bobbin assembly and leave to door open when you're using the needlefelter...the excess fluff falls out, which you can save to re-felt)

I tell you, I am still having a yen, dispite resisting for almost a year now. I put a new large screen display monitor for my computer ahead of the needle felting Babylok, but the next pot of money is headed for the machine, I think!

A needle felting attachment huh? that sounds cool. I have three machines, a bernina 1630, pfaff creative 1475 and janome 6600, I wonder if any of them would have this attachment, my guess is the bernina and pfaff are too old.

I didn't want to sound like a commercial *G*... mine is Bernina 153. As long as you can remove the bobbin hook you can use the attachment. Check with your dealership, they can tell you for sure if you can use it with your machine. The needles are individually replaceable...I've only broken one and I've been using it for well over a year (and often!) No affiliation...just a happy customer!

Judy..there is a conversion kit that you can get to change an old machine into a needlefelter..I have an old Touch and Sew that has timing issues that I am going to convert..you take out the bobbin assembly entirely, replace it with foam and attach the needle asembly - it's got 5 or 6 prongs I think..and away you go! It's on my list of things to do this year... I got hooked on needlefelting at Road this year and bought a bunch of supplies for hand needlefelting... but really want to convert that old machine!!

My last comment was wrong. I took that info from another blog. Here's the answer from my local Bernina dealer "Currently the needlepunch will only fit the current line of 5.5mmmachines. So any 5.5mm machine from 1260 and prior, it does not fit due tothe style of the presser feet etc. The needle punch accessory will fit anyactiva, virtuosa, aurora 430/440, and the artista 165/170/180/185 and the630."